


Arya and Gendry's Wedding vs. the World

by judypoovey



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (characters added as they appear), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-06 13:10:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11601321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/judypoovey/pseuds/judypoovey
Summary: It's a week until Arya and Gendry's wedding and things are starting to get a little silly.





	1. one week: catelyn stark vs. wedding planning

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for my amazing Megan ~merrymegtargaryen

When Catelyn had taken up the responsibility of coordinating Arya’s wedding she had wrongly presumed it would be a subdued affair. Her youngest daughter was not one for traditions, and a wedding seemed to Catelyn to be the most traditional of all things, and yet here they were, a year later, planning a wedding.

It wasn’t much for traditions, though. They had rented Mr. Manderly’s food truck to cater and almost all the services provided were by friends of Arya. Winterfell’s godswood would host a massive guest list. Arya had a lot of friends all over the country from her time abroad. Arya had always had a knack for befriending people.

It was shaping up to be a charming affair; a photobooth, a bonfire, basically no stuffy, boring traditions.  

Of course, a week out, things were beginning to fracture.

Catelyn loved getting phone calls from Brienne; they had become dear friends when the girl had decided to take a community knitting class that Catelyn attended with Sansa. Brienne was a hopeless knitter, but witty and loyal friend.

“I need you to change my RSVP number,” Brienne said without preamble. She wasn’t much for small talk, another trait Catelyn admired. Being bogged down in pleasantries was half her stress right now.

“We’ve already submitted all the numbers.”

“Just take me from two to one,” she said, sounding aggrieved.

“Is Jaime not coming?” Catelyn asked, daring to hope for a Lannisterless ordeal.

“Oh, he’s coming. He just agreed to go with _Edmure_ instead of me,” she said. “Since Roslin is helping you set up, he wants Jaime to help him with little Hoster, so they’re riding down together and RSVP’d together.”

Edmure did always have a sense of humor. “Oh, I see.”

“I suppose I’ll ride up with Renly, then.”

Catelyn wanted to ask if Brienne and Jaime were official yet, but she had discovered that the younger woman was easily flustered and sensitive about these things. Ever since she had broken up with Tormund Giantsbane (citing his frankly alarming number of children; Torwynd, Dormund, Toregg, Dryn, Munda, Ygritte, Lyanna, and Karsi’s two little girls whose names escaped her) she had been particularly secretive about her love-life. Jaime Lannister certainly wasn’t Catelyn’s favorite person in the world, but he and Brienne seemed to be very good friends, and she wouldn’t begrudge Brienne a chance at happiness.

“I’ll make a note of it, then.”

“Is Tormund coming?” Brienne all but mumbled into the phone.

“He’s Jon’s father-in-law,” Catelyn said, by way of _yes_. “He’s coming with Maege and the girls.”

“Thank the gods.” Maege Mormont was as good a buffer as any between people. Catelyn was particularly fond of her.

“See you in a week, then,” Brienne said.

“See you soon, dear.”

\--

Ravella Smallwood was fretting over the sewing machine when Catelyn found her. Ravella and Sansa had conspired to make Arya’s dress, knowing that some store-bought lace confection wouldn’t satisfy their fiercely unique Arya at all.

“You texted ‘ _SOS’_ ,” Catelyn said dryly. She and Ravella had been friends since grade school, and she was glad to have her around during the chaos. If she only had Stannis to rely on, Catelyn thought she might lose it.

“It’s the dress.”

“Arya’s dress?”

“ _Nymeria’s_ dress,” she said. Dressing up the gigantic wolfdog who was currently napping in the corner of the room had been Sansa’s idea. Nymeria was dog of honor, after all. (Truly, Sansa was maid of honor, but they agreed that it was a cute title to bestow upon Nymeria.)

“She won’t let you put it on her, will she?” Catelyn said, thinking of how Shaggy and Summer struggled against their bowties.

“Worse. She won’t let me take the bloody thing off.”

Catelyn turned and saw that what she had taken for part of Nymeria’s blanket was really a little “skirt”.

“She prances around in the thing like she’s the cutest pup in the room and won’t listen when I tell her it still needs to be altered!” Ravella said, shaking her finger at the dog.

Overcome with laughter, Catelyn collapsed into her chair. “I am exhausted.”

“I know. How are you doing this on your own?”

“The girls are helping, and Stannis too. Robert offered but, you know Robert. He’s a good financial backer and not much else.”

They shared a knowing smile. “Still, it’s a lot.”

“It’s mostly just the size of it. Arya isn’t asking for a lot, you know. Just a lot of the few things she’s asking for.” It was worth it, though, to see her so happy. Gendry was a good young man and Arya deserved it. Catelyn would have never thought she would be the second of her children to get married. Sansa was much more the romantic, but much more careful in her relationships. Arya went into things with her whole heart ready to go.

So of course Catelyn was determined to make this the best day of Arya’s life so far. (So they could keep getting better.)

\--

Then Hot Pie called her crying.

“Hot Pie, dear, what is the matter?” she said, trying to sound soothing, though her last nerve was shot.

Hot Pie’s wedding cupcake tower was going to be a thing of magnificence. He had been the only person they’d considered to make the dessert for the evening. And he was crying.

Catelyn found herself in Hot Pie’s tiny, shoe-box apartment an hour later as he tried to calm down and explain to her what he was so upset about.

“It’s not perfect yet!” he finally blurted out, gesturing to the cupcakes.

Catelyn, who had already eaten three of them, blinked.

“They taste perfect to me,” she said, trying to be covert when she wiped frosting off the corner of her mouth.

“They taste like every other cupcake I’ve ever made! I wanted these to be special!” he said. “I tried everything. Pinch of dried pepper, fresh vanilla, goat’s milk, it doesn’t work!”

Reaching out, she put a hand on his shoulder. “Hot Pie, they asked you to make the cake because they like the cupcakes you always make. So why would you make anything different?” Ever since Arya had met Hot Pie and Lommy they had been like fifth and sixth brothers to her, so Catelyn was used to mothering them a little bit.

That seemed to take him out of his panic a little bit. “You’re right. You’re right.” Deep breaths. “I’m sorry I dragged you out here, Mrs. Catelyn. Do you want to take a box of donuts home as an apology?” he asked.

“I’m sure someone will eat them,” she said.

Half of them were gone by the time she got home.

What could she say? She had a sweet tooth.

\--

 By the time she fell into bed with Ned that evening (the box of donuts in between them), Catelyn was bone tired.

“I thought that I’d be having to deal with cold feet or Sansa hating her bridesmaid dress,” she told her husband, whose contribution to the wedding was staying out of the way and doing what Cat told him to do.

“Arya’s never had cold feet in her life,” Ned noted, struggling with a bit of sugar in his beard.

“True. But dog dresses and imperfect cupcakes? Not what I thought I’d gotten myself into, Ned.” She snuggled up next to him, remembering their own (shotgun) wedding. “Robb and Jon did it like we did, I never thought it’d be Arya who had the big fancy event.”

Ned laughed. “It makes perfect sense to me, Arya could make friends with an ant colony.”


	2. five days out: gendry vs edric dayne

Five days out: Gendry vs. Edric: The Final Showdown.

“Why, exactly, does Ned have to come to _my_ thing when he’s on your side?” Gendry asked as he packed his bag, getting ready to go off and do whatever it was Robert had paid for them to do for his stag weekend.

“He doesn’t want to sit around drinking wine and doing pedicures with me and my friends,” she said, even though that did sound exactly like the kind of thing Edric Dayne would enjoy doing. “Come on, he’s my friend. Hot Pie and Lommy like him, I don’t know why you don’t.”

Gendry had a lot of reasons why he didn’t like Edric Dayne. One, Edric was some rich Dornish kid who probably thought of himself as charmingly slumming it to hang out with Arya and them. Two, he definitely, unequivocally had a thing for Arya. Three, he just didn’t like his face. Robert said that was a perfectly valid reason not to like someone, and for once Gendry agreed with his dad on something. But Edric was one of Arya’s “bridesmaids”, since Gendry had won the coin toss and gotten both Lommy and Hot Pie on his side.

“Shireen is coming to my thing even though she’s on your side,” Arya said. “So you get to hang out with Edric. Maybe you could give him a chance, finally?”

Gendry sighed. “I’ll be nice,” he conceded, stooping down and kissing Arya on the forehead. Ever since she’d proposed, he’d been trying to be a little less confrontational with Edric, because clearly Gendry had won. So for one weekend, he’d get along with Edric freaking Dayne.

Robert had instructed them to go to White Harbour, with just an address to guide them and nothing else. It was probably a swanky hotel suite fully stocked with booze (they were bringing their own just to be safe) or something. Gendry didn’t care for strip clubs or things like that, but a weekend of watching a big fancy TV in fluffy robes with his friends was a good one to him.

Ned had volunteered to drive. Gendry had demanded shotgun to pick the music.

“It was nice of your dad to pay for this,” Ned said, adjusting his overpriced sunglasses as they stuffed the cooler into the trunk.

“Yeah. Definitely makes up for the 15 years of absence,” he deadpanned back.

“Depends on how swanky the digs are,” Lommy offered from the back, where he was in charge of snacks. “Robert’s pretty loaded.”

“Yeah, me and Edric got to use his beach house a few times and it was crazy,” Ned said. “Like, wow.”

That was another point against Edric; he’d dumped Gendry’s little brother a year ago. Now, obviously a relationship between two guys both named Edric isn’t built to last, but Edric was still his younger brother and he was obligated to be protective (and maybe it was just a good excuse to hate Ned D more).

“I mean, no fancier than Starfall, right?” Hot Pie asked, curiously.

“I suppose not, but we like…live in Starfall? Having something that fancy that you only use a couple times a year seems over the top.”

Gendry rolled his eyes. It was going to be a long trip to White Harbour.

(It actually wasn’t, they made pretty good time in spite of Edric driving like a grandma.)

The address Robert had given them led them to…a spa? Checking in, the lady at the desk smiled brightly when Gendry managed to mumble his name to her. He still hadn’t adjusted to all this fancy shit.

“Right, so we have a suite for four, with the full spa and bar package,” she said brightly. “We’ll check you in, get you settled, then dinner is at 6. Tomorrow morning you have massages overlooking the harbor and a sauna rented. After lunch, it’s facials and full nail treatments, then dinner and drinks, and Sunday morning is brunch and a hot stone massage before checkout. Does that sound correct, Mr. Waters?”

“Uhhh, yeah.”

“We do need a card on file in the event of damages. Do you have one?”

“Oh, use mine,” Edric said immediately, fishing out his wallet and handing over a silver credit card. “Allyria will lose it if it gets charged up though, so let’s be gentle with the room.”

Hot Pie and Lommy laughed but Gendry just rolled his eyes.

Their room was at the top floor of the hotel, overlooking the bay and the whole of the city. It was huge. How much had Robert and Stannis dropped on this?

“Jeez, wow,” Hot Pie was saying.

“I snuck the beers in,” Lommy added proudly. “So we don’t have to hit their stupid limit.”

The limit of drinks they got for free was fairly generous, but Gendry appreciated the cheapness of the sentiment.

“Toss me a beer, I’m going to shower before dinner,” Edric said, setting his possessions down on the bed he’d declared ‘his’ and catching the can.

“Edric is being super chill,” Lommy said.

Gendry rolled his eyes. “I still don’t trust him.”

“Why?”

“He has a thing for Arya!”

Lommy and Hot Pie exchanged a look. “Are you sure about that?”

“Totally! I’ve seen the way he acts when they hang out. I’m telling you, he’s trying to steal her.”

“You’re marrying her next weekend, I think you won.”

Gendry narrowed his eyes at the closed bathroom door. “Sure. I’m going to change for dinner,” he said, dumping his bag out and trying to find something sufficiently fancy.

Dinner was plentiful, and the drinks were flowing freely by the time they got to the main course. Hot Pie had gone a little red in the face, while Lommy was stifling a constant stream of giggles. Edric was going a little slower, but still looked relaxed, leaning back in his chair. The sun was setting behind him and he looked all noble and cool and Gendry was getting more irritated by the second.

The main course was a whole fish each, stuffed with lemons and wrapped in greens. Edric snapped a picture of it before they started digging in, eliciting eye rolls from the guys.

“I’m sending it to Arya, so she’s good and jealous,” he said.

Gendry ignored that, mouth full of fish.

Hot Pie too-loudly criticized the soufflés they were served, threatening to come back into the kitchens and show their cooks a thing or two. The three of them struggled to drag him back upstairs to their room, where more drinks were waiting to be ordered and a big fancy TV was waiting to be watched.

“Robes!” Edric declared, and while Lommy and Hot Pie were enthusiastic, Gendry was not.

Drinking had just gotten him more flustered about sharing airspace with his brother-dumping-fiancée-coveting Enemy with a capital-Edric.

“What’s your deal?” he asked, tossing Gendry a robe in spite of the sour look on his face.

“You’re my deal!” he said, tossing back his beer.

Edric sighed. “Come on, lets just have a good weekend, okay? I know you don’t like me, it’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal, though, you’re trying to steal my girlfriend!”

“Wait. Seriously?” he asked.

“Yeah!”

“You think I like Arya?”

“…Don’t you?”

“Dude. No!” For the first time since Gendry had known him, Edric looked more irritated than politely flustered. “I dated your brother!”

“Yeah?”

“Why would I agree to be Arya’s brideguy if I had feelings for her? Wouldn’t that just be horribly painful?” He was hitting far too many logical points here, and Gendry’s righteous anger was melting away into something that felt a little more dickish.

“Then why do you always get so flustered and weird?”

“I’m in love with _Sansa_ , dumbass! I thought _that’s_ why you hated me!” True, pretty much everyone always hated every guy that had a thing for Sansa. “You thought I was trying to steal Arya this whole time and you didn’t just ask?”

Now Gendry definitely felt like a dick. “You like _Sansa_?”

“I’ve liked Sansa since we _met_. Before I even met Arya! I just never…I mean. I never got around to asking her out.” He was blushing and mumbling now, sheepish.

“Shit dude, why didn’t you tell us?”

“You don’t like me, why would I confide stuff like that in you?”

“…Point taken.”

There was an awkward pause.

“Robes?” Gendry offered, trying to recover the enthusiasm he’d ruined.

Pause.

“Robes!” Edric declared. They all bundled up in the fluffy cloth and bickered good-naturedly over what movie they were going to watch to pass the evening.

The next day, Gendry and Edric were as close to friends as they’d ever get. Edric even loaned Gendry his fancy sunglasses so that they could bask in the sun in their robes together, taking a few selfies to send back to Arya in the process.

Two days later, when they got back, skin, hair and nails all glowing from the spa treatments they’d received, Arya was waiting for them, smiling smugly.

“Have fun?” she asked, holding up her phone and displaying the picture they’d sent her of the four of them. They looked way less cool and way more drunk now that he was looking at it sober.

“Why didn’t you tell me Edric had a thing for your sister?” he asked.

“Edric has a thing for my sister?” she yelped.


	3. four days out: arya's bachelorette party!

“This house is really sweet, Aunt Dany,” Arya said when they got off their flight and arrived in Pentos, where her Aunt Daenerys had offered use of her house for the bachelorette party. Gendry had gotten a spa weekend courtesy of Robert, but the girls were planning something a little more fun.

Namely, Jeyne Poole was planning it. Which was always, unequivocally, a bad sign.

Her party consisted of Sansa, Jeyne, Shireen and Lyanna Mormont. Daenerys had business to attend to, so wouldn’t be there for the weekend.

Daenerys wasn’t technically Arya’s aunt (she was Jon’s aunt) but they had gotten rid of Rhaegar and traded him in for the superior Targaryen sibling, so she had become known as Aunt Daenerys.

Mostly she just dropped in at holidays with cool gifts and that was it. She was a busy lady.

Jeyne Westerling and Ygritte had also turned down the invitation to participate, something about taking care of their children or whatever. Arya understood.

It was supposed to be a fun but not crazy night. Arya’s last big hoorah before marriage. She was excited to see where married life would take her, but a night out with some of her favorite women was a good way to get the party started.

Dinner was subdued and they bought drinks to take back to the house.

Arya was almost disappointed. She had let Jeyne and Sansa take control of the evening, but if this was all it was going to be she almost wanted to abort mission and drag everyone out into the city proper and do something.

The drinks started flowing when they got home, and Arya forgot her previous complaint as they started swapping sordid tales and shrieking with laughter, the volume increasing with every drink consumed.

“And then I yelled my own name!” Jeyne concluded as they all laughed.

“And he still went out with you for six months,” Sansa added once they had caught their breath. “Which is just a miracle.”

Jeyne had only recently started dating Theon, and out of respect for Sansa and Arya growing up with him, he was suspiciously absent from her ridiculous tales, some of which Arya suspected to be lies.

“So, Shireen, when do you think you and Devan are finally gonna tie the knot?” Jeyne asked with a sly smirk. Shireen, being the quietest (though not really by much, she _was_ a Baratheon after all) was bright red, and busied herself with another glass of Arbor gold.

“Probably several years after we finally tell my dad we’re dating,” she said.

“He still doesn’t _know_?”

“You’ve been with Devan since we were fifteen!”

“Uncle Robert says he’s very…willfully ignorant sometimes. I think he suspects, but I’ve never had the heart to tell him. I feel like he’d stroke out.”

Arya, who was marrying into this family, chortled. “Might be. You probably need to break it to him eventually. Does Davos know?”

“And my mom…and Melisandre…and Robert and Renly…Gendry. Mrs. Seaworth…literally everyone except Dad,” Shireen listed off as Lyanna choked with laughter.

“See, this is why I’m glad I don’t have a proper dad, all that ‘my little girl can’t date’ bullshit,” she said, affecting an accent that had to be an impersonation of her actual father, Tormund, as she did. “You’re twenty-six!”

Shireen sighed and nodded.

At some point, they decided it was a great idea to get a cab and go to the club, and that was about where Arya’s awareness of the situation ended.

She woke up the next morning (closer to afternoon) with a pounding headache and a giant lizard sitting on her chest, looking at her curiously. Daenerys’s pet tegu lizards were hard to get used to, but Arya always loved animals. Less so, however, when she was so hungover she might die.

“Drogon I don’t want to play right now,” she groaned, pushing him off and rolling over. She was on the floor. Of the kitchen. Why was she on the floor?

Daenerys was looking down at her, the same look of mild bafflement on her face that Drogon had worn. “Rough night, I take it?”

“Do you have any bacon?” she asked weakly, sitting up and taking a glass of water.

“Already cooking it. Sansa is outside trying to regain coherence, as well,” she said.

The smell of bacon finally hit Arya and she lunged for the trash can. “I’ll take it out,” she said apologetically, after a few huge heaves. Once she had changed Dany’s trashbag, she went outside and found Sansa by the pool in a pair of dark sunglasses, drinking a huge glass of water.

“What happened last night?”

“We went out dancing and…I don’t…I think a strip club? Then we came home and…yeah…”

“That explains the stripper on the couch,” Shireen said as she walked outside, wrapped in a giant comforter. “Rhaegal is a surprisingly comfy pillow,” she added.

They went inside and indeed found a blue-haired man in very little clothing on their couch. Lyanna poked him with her toe. “Is he dead?” she asked.

“He’ll be fine,” Daenerys said evasively. “Next time you bring a stripper home, please make sure he’s not one of my ex-boyfriends,” she added as she tactfully covered Mr. Stripper with a blanket.

“You dated many strippers?” Arya asked.

“You’d be surprised.”

They shared a giggle, and then Arya looked around. “Hey…where’s Jeyne?”

“Maybe she’s still asleep?” Shireen asked. Lyanna hurried up the stairs, clearly enjoying the idea of shaking Jeyne awake.

“She’s not in any of the bedrooms.”

“Did we…lose Jeyne?” Shireen said, her voice turning a little fearful.

“Hey! Stripper guy!” Arya said, raising her voice even as her own head throbbed. “Wake up!”

With a graceless snort, Mr. Blue Hair rolled over and opened his eyes. “Hey! Do you remember last night?” she asked him.

“Yeah, I was sober,” he said, which surprised them. Apparently he was just a heavy sleeper. “I gave you a ride home because you couldn’t figure out how to work Uber and it was 4 AM so you insisted I sleep here,” he explained.

“And you realized it was your ex-girlfriend’s house and decided that was a great idea,” Daenerys added, her tone a little frosty.

Stripper Guy shrugged.

“Was there another girl with us when we left the club, then?”

“Hmm. I think so? It was pretty late and you all basically look the same.”

Arya wanted to protest, but there were four brunettes and one lone redhead in their group, and at 4 AM she wasn’t sure she could distinguish between herself and Jeyne Poole either. “Has anyone tried to call her?” she asked.

“I did, it rang but she didn’t answer.”

“Let me try something,” Sansa said, examining her own phone.

Dany brought them a tray of bacon, finally cooked, and they all started snacking, standing in a circle and struggling to remember the previous night’s events. Where had they left Jeyne?

“Hm that’s weird, it says her phone is in the house.”

“…You have a tracker on Jeyne’s phone?” Arya asked, feeling oddly scared of her older sister, not for the first time in their lives.

“You’ve met Jeyne, right? Of course I have a tracker on Jeyne’s phone,” she said with a slight shrug, following the glowing blip until they were crowding into the guest bathroom, where it had clearly fallen behind the toilet.

“She definitely had it when we went out, right?” Lyanna asked.

“Of course, she’s glued to it. Maybe she called someone,” Sansa said, entering Jeyne’s passcode and scrolling through the information. “Oh, she called Beric at 4:36. Twice. I don’t fancy hearing those voicemails.”

“How did she even get Beric’s number?” Arya asked, considering he had been their language teacher ten years ago.

“You know, let’s just never ask,” Sansa said. “Probably got it from Jojen when he was buying weed from them, but she’ll make up a great story. On second thought, we should ask.”

They all chuckled.

“So, Stripper Guy – ”

“Daario. He’s an idiot, but we shouldn’t dehumanize him for being a sex worker,” Daenerys said.

“Right. Daario says it was 4 AM when he dropped us off. She was in the bathroom on the phone at 4:36. So…maybe she wandered off?”

“Ugh. It could take forever to find her, then!”

“Our flight is at five and it’s eleven now, we need to find her as soon as possible,” Shireen reminded them.

“She must have wanted something outside if she bothered to leave the house. Can anyone remember what we talked about on the way home?”

“Nachos,” Daario supplied from the hallway. “Incessantly. Now I’m craving them.”

“Where’s the nearest place that could be found without a phone that could conceivably have nachos, then?” Sansa asked, thinking quickly.

“Probably the corner store a block down,” Dany said, in a tone that implied she had eaten nachos there many times. She lived in a fancy house in Pentos and dated gorgeous blue-haired strippers and still ate nachos from the corner store.

So they got their shoes, finished their bacon, and did a quick lap of Dany’s property – determining that Jeyne was nowhere on premise – and walked to the corner store.

Where Jeyne Poole, looking unfairly perky and unhungover, was walking out of the shop with the treasured fried treat clutched in one hand, a giant slushee in the other.

“Hey!”

“What the hell, we’ve been looking for you!” Sansa said.

“I got up early and wanted some nachos,” she explained. “I didn’t wanna wake you up so I just snuck out.”

“Without your phone?”

Jeyne, looking perplexed, patted herself down and realized that she indeed was missing her phone. “Oh shit. Do you still have that tracker on it?”

“I already found it, you dropped it behind the toilet sometime after you drunk dialed Mr. Dondarrion,” Sansa said, pulling out the phone and handing it to her.

Arya was almost disappointed that it hadn’t turned into some kind of slapstick man-hunt, but she was more relieved that Jeyne was okay and had bought enough nachos to share with the group.


End file.
